Kept Within
by Hareta
Summary: Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts!!! :P Hard to summarize really. 2nd part: Trowa's trying to figure out if Quatre's peaceful facade is what it seems . . .
1. Default Chapter

Kept Within  
  
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This fic is written in Quatre's POV. Non-yaoi or yaoi, interpret it as love or friendship and I really won't care. It's a bit pointless since it's mostly on thoughts and stuff, but what the heck. I wrote this while I'm feeling a bit tense to calm myself so it might not come out so good -- yeah, as if my other fics did. This is my second GW fic but my first one isn't finished yet.  
  
Oh, standard disclaimers applied. I don't own this characters, I didn't make them, and I'm aware that most of the stuff I'm writing is not in the series, okay?  
  
What the heck? That's why it's called a fan fiction! : P   
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"You are naive as hell, Trowa. Damn you."  
  
A pair of emerald eyes looked up to me, one hidden behind a uni-bang of beautiful mustard brown hair. The other that I can clearly see, however, showed only the slightest surprise, maybe at my words for I rarely, if never, swear, but even that slightest flicker of calm shock quickly disappeared as he, once again, masked his emotions from me.  
  
Trowa Barton, otherwise known as Pilot of the Gundam 04. I must admit that our first meeting wasn't all that nice. The situation called for us both to be in our Mobile Suits, up against each other. But even as I sat inside the cockpit, my Sandrock fighting Heavyarms, I knew he wasn't a real enemy. He did spend time over at my place after that, and that's how I came to find out of his exquisite skills with a flute. His playing had bewitched me then, even as it sang out what was a rather mournful piece to me.   
  
Mournful. How utterly ironic that a man who can express and provoke from others such emotion with how he handles an instrument can be so incredibly cold.   
  
" . . . I didn't know you could swear, Quatre."  
  
He spoke, breaking into my thoughts. My sky blue eyes focused on him, only for me to see him look back at me as if he had said nothing at all.  
  
And his silence. Even now that I am beginning to be able to read it, I still find it hard to talk to someone so quiet. What am I supposed to do? I have been trained most of my life in speaking eloquently and politely so that I can replace my father in his position someday, for isn't the art of speech the true weapon of pacifists like my family? I haven't been thought to speak without sounds.  
  
How can I express myself without words? If I can't, then will it always be like this? I talk and he listens? How can I learn who the real Trowa Barton is when that happens?  
  
"I do, sometimes. You've just been plain stubborn, that's all."  
  
He didn't reply, didn't return the gaze I was giving him. I winced as he tried to move his broken arm, but the action didn't seem to hurt him at all. His face retained that plain facade.  
  
Then the silence would reign and I'd have to look into his face and eyes for any sign of response or statement. But then he'd put on that blank look as if he's thinking, and feeling, nothing. I swear that he looks no different to me with or without that doukeshi mask on, an emotionless young performer.  
  
And I do hope that what he shows the rest of us is just a performance.  
  
"I told you not to go through with it, didn't I? You should have contacted the rest of us first before proceeding. It's a good thing Heero have placed me leader of this mission or else things would have gone terribly wrong. You know how the others can get a bit . . . disturbed if something happens that is out of the plan. I managed to shake their doubts off with a lame excuse, but I don't think Wufei believes me, and that broken arm will surely only confirm his thoughts . . . that you acted out of the mission strategy. If you did, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."  
  
He still won't respond and I was having the most uncomfortable feeling for being the only one among the two of us to be speaking. However, until I get any reaction from him, I must continue.  
  
"Not that I blame you. I must admit that without that interference we wouldn't have gotten into the base . . . but really, Trowa! You should have told us beforehand so I could have at least appointed someone to back you up. You don't know how tense everyone was when we finally read the computer's read-outs and realize that you've fought off about half a hundred Mobile Dolls by yourself! You knew all along that that group was there but you didn't tell us . . . why?"  
  
He didn't make any move to face me. He flashed his eyes towards my direction once, but that was all, before he returned his look towards the night sky.  
  
Contemplating on what the look meant, I reached over and started fixing the worn-out first aid kit. Trowa received so many bruises and cuts all over his body but his broken arm was the only one serious as far as I can see, that is, if you can actually say that to soldiers like Trowa who seem to take every near-fatal injury as a scratch.  
  
His eyes, that sliver of thoughts and words in them at that swift instant, were precious. A brief moment, but I was able to understand what he meant to say with the silence.  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I only wanted the success of the mission and I just didn't wish for anyone to be in the line of fire with me. I can fight alone, can't I? I've proved it already and a bunch of Mobile Dolls can't compete with a Gundam Pilot."  
  
Those were his words, what I can read from that short gaze I got from him.  
  
Wondering for a moment if it would actually work, I reached over and tapped him in the hand. He turned around after a while, with that same old mask on, and stared into my eyes, the first time he really looked into them.  
  
"It's alright, Trowa. Thank you."  
  
My words said both by my lips and my eyes.  
  
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I'm stopping this 'coz I'm actually starting to calm down. Seemingly 'not yet finished', ne? Well, it's not! If I continue it depends on whether or not I get reviews however . . . hope I do!  
  
Oh, lastly, why the weird title? Because thoughts are always kept within yourself unless you wish to share them with others . . .  
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	2. Midnight Thoughts and Melody

Kept Within   
  
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Hi, guys! Cool. I just posted the first part yesterday and I got three reviews already! Thank you SO much.  
  
Oh yeah, about that line on Trowa being the pilot of Gundam 04, I knew the 'correctors' would come. I posted the stuff yesterday afternoon, went offline, and then watched my fave GW episode -- Grief-Stricken Quatre. Darn! If you had seen the look on my face when I remembered I had it the other way around! : P  
  
Thanks again anyway, and please DO correct me when I get things wrong. I am, after all, only sixteen [in the anime world that is -- not in the real] and I'll be committing MANY mistakes!  
  
Trowa's POV this time around and, yes, I'm still continuing this thinking-spree. [If I didn't, do you think there would be anything written here? Trowa barely talks!]  
  
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"It's alright, Trowa. Thank you."  
  
I turned away from him and gazed outside the glass window of the safe house we five were staying in. His hand slid away from mine and got to work fixing the kit again. When that was done, he started talking about the next mission which, I realized as I half-listened to him, isn't scheduled for about two more weeks.   
  
Prying my vision from the nighttime sky, I looked at my blue-eyed companion pointedly, trying to say 'shut up' and being gentle with him at the same time. He looked up, saw my eyes, nodded, and turned silent.  
  
Quatre Raberba Winner, my closest friend in this group of teen-aged boys the people of the colonies and Earth have come to speak of collectively as the 'Gundam Pilots'. It is always a wonder to me how he can stand my silence and seem to hear my messages without me voicing them out. All I know is that he looks at my face and eyes, and then knows exactly what I want to say. That's the weirdest thing about it all. How can he understand when everyone else only sees a blank face and cold forest green eyes? How can he read my thoughts when even Catherine can only do so much as to say that I am inhumanly emotionless?   
  
At first, I blamed it to that empathy crap. He is just too sensitive to others' feelings, that's all. But time passed and I began to doubt his true abilities as someone who can feel what the other pilots do. Whether the rest of us want to believe it or not, Quatre will never feel exactly what we do. Yes, he's a good listener, he'll understand you and comfort you, but he'll never fully know how it is. That's because he's not a soldier. He's too kind and innocent to be one. He is not like the rest of us, especially not like the cold Trowa, me.   
  
Come to think of it, Quatre and I are as different as we can get, both in appearance and in our personalities.   
  
So then how can he read me when even Heero who is as cold, emotionless and every bit a soldier as I cannot?  
  
"Quatre, why don't you go to sleep?"  
  
The words just slipped out of me, one of those very rare instances wherein I'll suddenly forget and speak without being prodded into doing so. I didn't even face him and kept looking outside.  
  
"How about you?"  
  
I shifted back into my silence again. A side-glance, I'm sure he knew what I meant with it, "Maybe later."  
  
"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow."  
  
Turning off the table lamp next to me, he slid out of his chair easily and gave me a pat on the back as he passed me on his way towards his room. I didn't even look up and saw only a rectangle of orange light upon the wall as Pilot 04 opened the door. The brightness didn't disappear for quite some time as I felt Quatre's gaze on the back of my head, but it soon did, leaving me in darkness with only the light of the moon outside cutting through it from time to time as the wind howled making the branches sway.  
  
Mysterious like the night.  
  
Everyone thinks Quatre is an open book that what he shows and what they see is who he really is. But being his friend, how come the more I get to know him, the more I find myself confused? He is as puzzling and as amusing as a space lattice. The more you know, the more it seems there is to be found out.  
  
I think of his past, sometimes a bit too much in my opinion, to forget the one I neither had nor can recall before my mercenary days and ask myself, "Has he been happy in childhood?" Unlike most of us, Quatre has had a family, still has in fact, and he doesn't have any reason to fight in this war. What must have his life been before the Operation Meteor? The Winner family is one of the most prominent and richest there is in the colonies, and he being the only male heir must have given him a life of bliss.   
  
I shook my head. Everyone thinks that way, everyone sees that way, but is it all true? Did he really have such a good life?  
  
The playing of a violin pulled me out of my thoughts. My head snapped up, Quatre was still up. Somehow, while I was lost in the haze of my own thoughts, he managed to slip past me, and get his violin from its case that stood against the opposite wall. The sleek black leather casing lay open upon Quatre's feet as his instrument hummed out that familiar melody.  
  
I looked at him critically, making my stare felt and the question that came with it, momentarily forgetting that such efforts made no difference for Quatre can surely tell even without me doing those things. He didn't make a move to stop though, and I started getting out of my seat.  
  
"Trowa, I can't sleep."  
  
I stopped halfway up as he finally answered, still continuing to play. His eyes were closed as he laid his chin upon the chin rest, his hands moving expertly to continue the rhythm of the song.  
  
"And I can't stop thinking."  
  
I didn't reply. That's when I realized that my feet were taking me slowly towards him, no, towards the table behind him were my flute was in.  
  
"Of what is war . . . about."  
  
I was halfway there, my thoughts now drifting off from reality and concentrating on his statement. What is war about . . ?  
  
War is fighting. But why do we fight? For peace. And what is peace? It's the time were there is no war . . .   
  
The notions were too stupid, the answers are all within a single circle, repeating themselves over and over again, that I found myself finally thinking of nothing.  
  
A soldier doesn't think, he fights. You need not ponder why you are in a battlefield because all you need do is fight. It's the only thing that people like I am are good for. And after it's all over . . .   
  
"Then afterwards . . . we'll be gone. I only fight because of peace but once the war is over and your hands are stained with blood. . !"  
  
The fog disappeared from my eyes as Quatre opened his. The sudden exclaim of his seem to have brought of us back to our senses.   
  
"The reason I fight even though my father would hear none of it is because if I don't, we don't, no one will. I keep telling myself I'm a soldier, but I'm just too weak. I'm not even strong enough to pretend that I am as cold as the rest of you. I cannot fight but with the rest of you I can. I know what is to be a soldier because my friends are!"  
  
The playing stopped sometime during his words but when I didn't notice. He had tears in his eyes and now I know the answers to my questions before.   
  
"If you're a soldier, you don't have any friends nor will you ever have. Remember that, Quatre."  
  
I was already at his back, opening the drawer and pulling out my flute. He wheeled around hastily, but being careful enough not to drop his violin.  
  
"But, Trowa! I'm . . . then you mean . . ?"  
  
I raised the flute in front of me. My eyes locked with his sapphire ones.  
  
"Do not think. Play."  
  
And without another word, my flute started singing out the melody we used to play together. He hesitated, looking like he wants to speak more, but his eyes too took on that rhythmic look and his violin joined mine -- bringing forth the piece that always seemed rather mournful.   
  
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How was it? I must say I was feeling rather down with this one, I preferred the last, but an inspiration hit me towards the ending and, well, you see how it came out.  
  
No, this is not the end -- if I get reviews that is!   
  
Final note: Standard Disclaimers applied, etc, etc, and I'm sorry if the characters and their thoughts turned out a bit 'unlike' them. The notions and words of course are mine and not theirs! : P   
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